INDIA COLES
Artist
STATEMENT
Drawing inspiration from minimalist installation I seek to create works that not only utilise space as a medium, but actively engage with both viewer and site. Working with largely mass-produced components, chosen materials are manipulated as little as possible - placing emphasis on inherent desirable properties. My work is transformative yet familiar, aiming to be as authentic and as true as possible from the outset.
The site-responsive work is subsequently affected by the viewer, whose presence alters the shared space; this serves as a reminder of their own physicality.
For me, the artwork exists somewhere between the art object, the site and viewer interaction; creating something that is at once immaterial, whilst inextricably linked to its materiality.
Key influences include; Carl Andre, Tara Donovan, Olafur Eliasson, Martin Creed, Dan Graham, Robert Irwin.
"..space is not void. Space is a material. It is physical."
Anish Kapoor
EXHIBITIONS
LIFE ON VENUS III | THE ORGANIC
February 2021
Nobody thought that life could exist on Venus. Nobody thought to look for it. Yet earlier this year, phosphine, a gas which signals the existence of life, was discovered on the planet Venus, by Astrophysicist Clara Sousa-Silva.
A recent survey suggests that it’ll take 130 years to close the gender gap in the field of astrophysics. The same gap exists in the cultural sector, with men under the age of 35 twice as likely as women to hold senior job roles.
But this isn’t an exhibition about what has been achieved in spite of adversity, instead it is a celebration of what has always existed and rarely shown or celebrated.
The third instalment of the series, ‘Life on Venus III | The Organic’ exhibits over 150 original A5 works of art by female-identifying and non-binary artists.
SENSE & SENSIBILITY: AESTHETIC (IM)MATERIALITY
2017 - Winchester School of Art
This audience-activated exhibition comprises work from three artists with a link between their practices, a point of interest, an integral element that being the audience, and how the audience interacts with these pieces and experiences them with their own individual aesthetic sensibility.
ALONG THE RIVERRUN
2017 - ArtSway
“Along the Riverrun” is the second in the programme of exhibitions – “Here Time Becomes Space”. A focus on looping is refined in the programme’s second act; introducing as well as interrogating the cyclical narrative.
BA DEGREE SHOW
2017 - Winchester School of Art
"Every year, as part of their degree programmes, our final year students exhibit their work in exciting and engaging Degree Shows in Winchester and London."
